


Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches

by hearteating



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Plans For The Future, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21867361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearteating/pseuds/hearteating
Summary: Sarah and Dani hit the road.
Relationships: Sarah Connor & Dani Ramos
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amilyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amilyn/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I love old Sarah so much

Sarah had never resented John- he was her son and she loved him. He was just a kid, a kid with potential the future wanted, to keep or to kill. She would have fought for him whether he was the savior of the human race or not, because he was hers.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she had never resented _John_. John's fate, on the other hand...for such a hopeful, precious thing as saving humanity, it sure was an unforgiving fucker of a thing. They'd never get the chance to be a normal mother and a normal kid; they'd always be looking over their shoulders; they'd always have to wonder how every choice they made would impact the future.

Even after Sarah saved the world, for John as much as the rest of humanity, they hadn't been safe. The future, which had never happened, still found a way to destroy them.

“You're John,” Sarah said, when Grace dropped that little bombshell about Dani being leader off the resistance. What she didn't say was _That's not fair_. Not fair that Sarah had gone through hell because she gave birth, and Dani was going through the same hell for something she actually did.

She shoved the words away. Since when had life ever been fair? Mother or savior, Dani still needed protecting.

“Won't this change the future?” Dani asked. “I wasn't exactly a trained badass before. What if all this means I don't become the person I was in Grace's timeline?”

“Is that a bad thing?” Sarah asked. Dani's mouth twisted. Sarah sighed. “Look. The future? It doesn't exist? It's always changing. Maybe you get lucky; you destroy LEGION before it ever starts, like I did with Skynet.”

“And then what?” said Dani. “I end up like you?”

They both flinched at that.

Sarah took a breath, trying, as she always did, one way or another, to fill that painful empty place behind her ribs.

“Then,” she answered, “you see what you can live with.”

“Connor,” called the woman at the other end of the warehouse.”

“Kentucky,” Sarah replied, walking to meet her. Dani followed a step behind, to her left. Bodyguard style. No one had to know she was the more important one of the two.

(“Kentucky?” Dani had asked, when Sarah told her who they were meeting. “Is that her real name?”

“It's where she was based when I met her,” Sarah had replied. “I never bothered asking about her real name.”)

“Who's your friend,” Kentucky asked, when they were closer. She was a small woman, compact, with short mousy hair and eyes that could rival a Terminator's for intensity.

“Sidekick,” said Sarah, tensing a little. “I told you I was bringing her.”

“Are you armed?”

“Always.”

Kentucky broke out in a smile and started laughing, a high, wheezing sound. Sarah joined her, stepping forward to shake Kentucky's outstretched hand.

“It's been a while,” she said. Dani shifted, clearly feeling awkward and impatient. Sarah ignored her.

“Not long enough,” replied Kentucky with another wheezy laugh. She clapped her hands together. “So, you said you wanted to check out what's new?”

She led them over to a table on which there was an array of clunky looking high-tech devices. Military issue-- rarely as sexy as people thought. 

“I'm looking for something that can detect extreme temperature changes,” said Sarah. “From a distance.” Kentucky nodded.

“And electricity,” added Dani.

Sarah suppressed her irritation. Dani was right- bursts of electricity were another signal of a portal from the future opening up. Relying on a Terminator's-- Carl's-- texts had been an easy way to find Terminators. Now they needed to cover every base they could. Sarah should have mentioned the electricity as well.

“And something that can detect bursts of electricity,” she confirmed. “EMP trackers too, if you got any.”

Kentucky nodded again, approvingly, She picked up one boxy looking machine.

“This one will track your temperature changes,” she said, tossing it to Sarah. Sarah quickly looked it over for defects, then passed it to Dani.

“This thing here will let you know about any EMP burst for 100 miles,” said Kentucky. 100 miles wasn't all that much, given the size of the world, or even the country, but it was better than nothing. Sarah took the device.

“There's something wrong with this one,” Dani suddenly said from behind Sarah. Sarah had to hand it to her for being able to say something like that without coming off as accusing. Dani sounded reasonable, pleasant almost. Still, Sarah winced.

“Oh?” Kentucky raised an eyebrow. That was bad. “You an expert in military-grade technology?”

“No, but I worked in a manufacturing plant. I know standards and techniques, and this,” Dani said, putting the temperature-change detector on the table upside-down, “wasn't done in a factory.”

Sarah looked closer. Dani was right-- the seams on the top were nearly invisible, but the plate on the bottom had a scratch and a thin, slightly uneven border of dark, shiny black where the plate had been levered off and then soldered back shut.

Could be a bomb, or a tracker, sabotage, anything. It could even be nothing, although that wasn't likely. Kentucky was compromised. Sarah moved to draw the gun tucked in the small of her back.

“I'm sure you didn't know anything about that, though,” Dani continued. “It was probably like this when you got it, right?”

No way she was that naive, after all she'd been through and all Sarah had taught her. Sarah turned, mouth open, ready to bitch Dani out.

“Right,” Kentucky replied. Sarah caught the look on Dani's face, the wariness in Kentucky's voice, and realized. Dani was giving Kentucky plausible deniability; they both knew Kentucky had tampered with the device, either for her own reasons or for someone else's. But Dani was offering her a way to save face, and maybe the chance for her and Sarah to get out of here without a fight. A good idea, if it worked.

Sarah hadn't tried subtlety in a long time. Clearly, she was a little rusty. She let go of her gun and let Dani work. She could always step in if things escalated.

“We'll take the other equipment,” Dani said. “That all checks out. But we can't take this. You understand.”

Kentucky nodded jerkily. Dani smiled and began putting everything in the duffel bag she'd brought. Sarah stayed where she was, waiting and ready for the first sign off an ambush.

When the bag was zipped up and Dani was back behind her, Sarah took some cash from her jacket and tossed it on the table.

“That should cover it. Thanks, Kentucky.”

Kentucky picked up the cash and counted it. Habit. She wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on if Sarah shorted her, but then again, this wasn't necessarily the kind of situation where fairness played that big of a role. Story of Sarah's life, really.

Kentucky looked up and nodded. Sarah thought she might have seen some regret, there. 

“Nice doing business with you, Connor.”

“Damn straight,” replied Sarah. “Come on,” she said to Dani, and the two of them made their way out of the warehouse. Sarah kept her guard up the whole time expecting the feds or a sniper dot or a team of gunmen any second.

She wasn't angry at Kentucky. Disappointed, sure, and irritated as hell one of her sources was burnt, but she got it. You did what you could to survive.

When they got to their motel room, Sarah turned to Dani.

“What the hell was that?” She kept her tone casual, conversational, but Dani's face fell and then hardened.

“Excuse me?”

“Calling Kentucky out like that, you could have gotten us killed. Or arrested. What if she was part of a sting? What if she decided she didn't like your tone and shot you? Where would Grace's general, savior of humanity, be then?”

Anger sparked in Dani's eyes. She stepped forward, shoving her face in Sarah's. 

“If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have even noticed something was wrong! You would have taken that detector and been caught like that.” She snapped her fingers in front of Sarah's nose. “And if it had been a sting, I don't think it would have mattered if I said anything. They would have arrested us anyway.” She took a deep breath. “And don't use Grace like that again. This is for her; you know that better than anyone.”

Sarah took a step back. She smiled.

“Good job, kid,” she said. Dani looked confused. “I wanted to make sure you had good reasons behind what you did. That you weren't just acting on impulse. You were smart, and it was a good catch.”

Dani stared at her for a moment, then sighed and collapsed onto one of the creaky twin beds.

“Do you ever get tired of not trusting people?”

“I never get tired of staying alive,” Sarah retorted, but her heart wasn't in it. She was tired. Of everything, really. But what else was she supposed to do? Any chance at a normal life was long gone, if there had ever been any chance at all.

“Humanity needs to stick together, to trust each other, if we want to defeat LEGION,” Dani said. When Grace had told them about Dani saying this, or something like this, she'd made Dani sound fierce and full of conviction. Sarah thought, here and now, that Dani sounded scared and desperate.

She sat next to Dani.

“Trust isn't something I've had a lot of since John died,” she said heavily. “Not real trust. It always seemed...dangerous.” She knocked her shoulder against Dani's. “But I do trust you, kid. As much as an old bitch like me remembers how.”

They sat in silence for a minute. Then Dani bumped her back.

“When the time comes-- if it comes-- will you help me train the resistance?”

“I don't know.” Sarah had never imagined she'd make it that long; all the stories of humanity's future were about John. She'd never played much of a part after bringing him into the world. “Grace didn't know who I was. She never mentioned me. Seems a hell of a thing not to bring up.”

Dani turned to her and smiled.

“Maybe, but didn't you say the future is always changing?”

Sarah had been ready to die for the future for years. Maybe, she thought that night, she could try living for it.


End file.
